In general, on such issues as this, see Bart Ehrman's book on Orthodox
Corruption of Scripture (1993) -- he argues that in some instances,
zealous scribes made some ambiguous texts more "orthodox" with their
intentional changes. I don't have the book at hand, so I don't know if all
of the following texts are discussed there.
 
> A Brief History of the Bible - 9
> 
> Some textual cruces.  Let's have a look at a few textual problems from St
> Mark's Gospel.
> 
> 1. Did Mark call Jesus "Son of God" at 1:1?
> 
> Nestle's text of Mark 1:1 reads:
> 
> Arche tou euaggeliou Iesou Christou,
> 'Beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ,'
> 
> However Souter's text adds the words Yiou Theou, 'Son of God'.
> 
> Which is right? There is no great theological principle at stake;  Mark
> called Jesus 'Son of God' a number of times elsewhere in his text.  The
> question is, did he do so here?
> 
> The original text of Sinaiticus has the shorter form, though a later hand
> has added in 'Son of God';  the Koridethi MS ('Theta') also has the shorter
> form.  It is also attested by quotations from Irenaeus, Origen, Basil,
> Victorinus and Jerome.
> 
> The words Yiou Theou are found in Vaticanus, Bezae, Washingtonianus (a 5th
> century codex in the Freer Museum, Washington:  = "W"), and a slight
> variant, Yiou tou Theou, is found in Alexandrinus, the f1 and f13 families
> of minuscules, and in the 'Textus Receptus'.  Westcott and Hort relegated
> the words to the margin, but Vincent Taylor, editor of a fairly recent
> critical commentary on Mark, leaves them in.  Every English translation I
> have consulted - KJV, RV, RSV, NEB, NIV, REB, GNB, JB, NAB - leaves them in.
> 
> As far as MSS evidence goes, it's a toss up.  Sinaiticus has the shorter
> form, Vaticanus the longer.  Despite the opinions of all the translators,
> (but with Westcott and Hort and Nestle on my side) I think I would leave the
> phrase out, on the grounds that it was more probably inserted than omitted
> by a later hand.  One way or the other, we are surely dealing with a
> deliberate alteration.  

I can imagine at least one scenario where an accidental omission could
have occurred, and that is in an early MS that used the conventional
abbreviations for each word: Jesus (IU/IHU) Christ (XRU) son (UIU) of God
(QU), all of which would be overlined. It would be fairly simple to slip
from one overline to another in a "haplographic" sort of oversight. But
that seems to me less likely than Bill's explanation, all things
considered.

> In the very first verse of the text, we cannot
> suppose the scribe had grown drowsy and carelessly missed out a couple of words.
> 
> If Mark had written 'Son of God' here, I cannot imagine why any scribe would
> have omitted such a striking testimony to Christ's divinity.  On the other
> hand, if he had not written it, I can well imagine that a zealous copyist
> would have stuck it in. 
> 
> 2. Did Mark write 'The prophet Isaiah' or 'the prophets' at 1:2?
> 
> Nestle's text prints, Kathos gegraptai en to Esaia to prophete, 'as it is
> written in the prophet Isaiah'.  Actually the first part of the quotation
> which follows, 'Behold, I send my messenger before your face to prepare your
> way' is not from Isaiah but from Malachi, 3:1.  The rest of the quotation,
> 'The voice of one crying in the wilderness . . .' is from Isaiah 40:3.
> 
> 'the prophet Isaiah' is found in Sinaiticus and Vaticanus and a few other
> MSS, and is used in the Revised Version.  A slight variant, omitting the
> first definite article, which is not significant, is found in Bezae and
> Koridethi, the f1 family and many others. Our reading is vouched for by the
> Vulgate and the Old Latin translations, the Coptic version, and quotations
> from Irenaeus and Origen.
> 
> The quite different reading, en tois prophetais, 'in the prophets', is found
> in Alexandrinus, Washingtonianus, the f13 family and other minuscules, and
> in the Textus Receptus - which is why the King James Version has 'in the
> prophets'.
> 
> Which is right?  Undoubtedly, 'in the prophet Isaiah.'  This is what Mark
> wrote.  Somebody realising that the first quotation was not from Isaiah
> 'corrected' it to 'in the prophets'.  It is easy to see why someone would
> want to correct Mark's mistake.  One the other hand, if Mark had written 'In
> the prophets' it is hard to imagine why anyone would want to change it to
> 'In the prophet Isaiah'.  Note that the 'corrected' reading is found
> predominantly in the Byzantine text, which has been worked over and
> corrected by scholars in the interest of smoothing out discrepancies - a
> process fatal to textual purity.
> 
> 3. Did Mark write 'apostello' or 'ego apostello' at 1:2?  This is a fairly
> trivial point;  both mean 'I send';  there is no difference when translated
> into English.  Still, we may as well get it right if we can.  'ego' is found
> in S, A and W, in several other uncials, and, perhaps significantly, in the
> Vulgate.  The pronoun ego is no more necessary in Latin than in Greek, but
> Jerome was translating word for word and presumably had ego in the Greek
> text before him.  Ego is found  also in the Textus Receptus.
> 
> I think I would be inclined to leave it in.  It is vouched for in S, our
> best codex, as well as in A and in the Byzantine tradition generally.  The
> pronoun is not necessary, so it is difficult to see why anyone should put it
> in unless Mark had written it himself.  The Byzantine tradition tends to
> smooth out grammatical anomalies, to produce better Greek.  It might well
> have eliminated an unnecessary pronoun, but would hardly have stuck one in -
> the tendency was entirely the other way.

This sort of variation is difficult to judge, unless there are
sufficiently clear parallel passages in Mark that show a tendency to be
"pleonastic" or not in such a construction. A computer check would be easy
to do, at the level of editorial choices; and once the variants are
encoded in a searchable form, such a task will be even simpler! As for me,
I'm still trying to get all the LXX/OG variants into such an electronic
form! But there is an added complication here, and that is the fact that
the variant comes within a quotation. As you might expect, Malachi 3.1 has
exactly the same variations in the OG materials, with most texts lacking
the pronoun. Christian copyists familiar with the Synoptic Gospels might
incline to "correct" the OG of Malachi, and vice versa. Matt 11.10 and
Luke 7.27 are also relevant factors, since cross-influence of synoptic
passages is a well known "contaminant." The pronoun is strongly attested
in the Matthew passage, but not in Luke (judging from the texts at hand).
Since Matthew is normally the most influential Gospel in such matters, one
might be tempted to see the EGW in Mark as influenced by Matthew. But it's
a tough one, and probably "too close to call."

> 
> Oriens. 
> 

Bob
-- 
Robert A. Kraft, Religious Studies, University of Pennsylvania
227 Logan Hall (Philadelphia PA 19104-6304); tel. 215 898-5827
[log in to unmask]
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rs/rak/kraft.html


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